


That's My Private Personal Business!

by Kitt_Monroe



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1668758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitt_Monroe/pseuds/Kitt_Monroe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saionji keeps a journal. Sometimes there are problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's My Private Personal Business!

_Scritch scritch scratch._

The soft, monotonous sound of pencil against paper was almost soothing by itself, but it helped that Saionji was already fatigued. Every half-minute or so she would realize her eyes had drooped shut, and she would snap them back open only to discover that, while dozing off, she had allowed her handwriting to devolve into a barely intelligible amalgam of random shapes and strokes. Then she would have to erase the last few letters and redo them so that they matched all those previous to them in neatness.

To claim for the purpose of emphasizing her interest in her handwriting that Saionji prided herself on few things would be fantastically inaccurate, and that it would be a lie would be obvious to anyone who had spent any time with her. Really, Saionji prided herself on a lot of things, but particularly important to her was her penmanship. She had studied it classically, like she had many things, and when she really put her mind to it--and when she had the proper pen--she could produce stunning calligraphy in a wide range of fonts and styles. Even her casual writing was rather cute and certainly stylish, but when she got really tired like this, her legibility took a hard blow.

So did her forehead, several times, every time she accidentally went to sleep and bonked it on the table.

She had snagged an old cassette player from the Monomono Machine. It was a cool...ish item, she guessed. It didn't include any cassettes, though; apparently she had to supply those.

Naturally, she had whined at Mioda until the Super High-school Level Light Music Club Member (which, by the way, was a mouthful and Saionji had always thought Mioda should be ashamed for allowing herself to be stuck with such a cumbersome talent name) agreed to give her a few. And then whined some more until Mioda helped her record some music on them. She figured her cuteness had helped a lot in the negotiations, as well as the fact that Mioda seemed to be a sucker for "cute girls" (specifically, it appeared, Tsumiki, which Saionji thought was pretty damn sad but hey who said Mioda was normal). Who wasn't?

Well, maybe Komaeda, but he was weird and didn't like anybody except Hinata, which proved he didn't have great taste _anyway._

Regardless of her methods, Saionji had convinced Mioda to sing a few of Saionji's favorite songs to put on the tapes. Saionji could say all she wanted about how obnoxious Mioda was, but the guitarist admittedly had a somewhat-better-than-adequate singing voice.

Saionji talked a big game about how into traditional Japanese culture she was--and don't get her wrong, she was into it. She sincerely liked wearing her kimono, and she not only excelled at but thoroughly enjoyed traditional dancing--but when it came down to it, she really just could not do Japanese music. There was something, she was pretty sure, about the instrumentation elements commonly used in Japanese pop that she had never come around to enjoying. She much preferred foreign material, particularly American selections, which she felt had a lot more flair.

So, with a few playlists of, total, about forty American songs from all different time periods (as sung by Mioda), she had returned to her cottage and was now attempting to write a journal entry for today while wishing the music kept her awake better than it did.

It was Koizumi who had suggested she keep a journal. "Maybe if you write down all your thoughts about stuff that happens over the day, you won't be irritated about the bad stuff, and you can wake up the next morning feeling refreshed instead of resentful," the freckled girl had explained, with that slight tilt of the head and that big smile she probably didn't realize made Saionji feel so weird in her stomach.

Koizumi was always trying to get Saionji to analyze her own feelings or something. It wasn't something Saionji particularly enjoyed; pretty much any time she spent time with the red-haired girl she was guaranteed to learn something about herself she didn't like, and that usually ended with her crying, just a little. And not like the fake floods of tears she would pull off to make people feel sorry for her or, more often as of late, get Koizumi's attention. And make Koizumi agree to do things like wash her back in the bath.

But that was a different story and not extremely relevant to the story at hand.

Koizumi may have been a photographer by profession, and she certainly was quite good at the nuances of photography, but Saionji was pretty sure if she hadn't gone into photography as a career Koizumi would have been a therapist. For all she didn't like having to figure out obscure things like why being bullied when she was younger made it feel like payback to pick on her classmates now or why she always retreated into her cute demeanor as a defense mechanism or countless other things that Saionji had never really wanted to acknowledge...she had to admit Koizumi was really good at helping her figure that stuff out. Koizumi had even said Saionji was making progress a few times, and Saionji had never really thought of herself as the type of person who needed to "make progress," but it still felt like an achievement.

It was possible, maybe, that part of why it felt like an achievement was the person _telling_ her she was making progress, but Saionji didn't like to think about that because the feelings.

So for right now, there she sat, half-asleep, writing sentence after half-assed sentence in an effort to reach the fifteen Koizumi had recommended for the day while listening to Mioda coo some song about a hotel by Elvis Presley (was he the one who died? Saionji couldn't remember) and doing her best to ignore the fact that about every other sentence mentioned Koizumi in a uniquely positive context.

That was one of the things she appreciated most about Koizumi's quest to help her improve her attitude: Koizumi never demanded to see her journal entries. She would ask politely whenever they met if Saionji was okay with her reading what she had written, but she wasn't persistent. Which came in handy a lot, since some things Saionji just could not let her see.

Saionji had done a good deal of work to alienate a good number of her classmates from the notion that it was acceptable for them to engage her in conversation. Some of them still didn't get it--like Souda, who was a serious moron anyway and probably needed to be constantly reminded about everything anyway, as well as Kuzuryuu, who was just so loserly and combative Saionji figured she'd never get it into his head. It wasn't as though she actively disliked any of them (although she could certainly think of countless reasons to dislike any of them--Owari was loudmouthed and a cow, Tanaka was creepy and just _had_ to comment on everything, Tsumiki was...well, she was _Tsumiki_ ), but she didn't like being made to talk to people. If she was going to talk with someone, she needed it to be on _her_ terms, and at _her_ convenience. Thanks to her work in this area, she had greatly reduced the incidence of her classmates randomly calling after her in the mornings to spend time with her or coming to her cottage to chat or ask her to a meeting or something. And that was good, really; why would she want anyone to talk to her? It wasn't like she wanted anybody to take an interest in what she was doing or what she was thinking. Yeah...it really was just how she wanted it.

So her confusion was understandable when there suddenly was a ring of her doorbell. A soft _ding_ followed almost two seconds later by an equally soft _dong._

Saionji was absolutely not in the mood to deal with anybody right now but all the same tried to guage who might be at her door at such an ungodly hour. It could be Hinata, who seemed to always be randomly showing up at everyone's cottages at weird times just to talk or something because apparently the presence of the difficult-to-get-rid-of Komaeda in his life didn't give him enough to do with his time. It could be Nanami, who had previously indicated a weird personal investment in ensuring that people went to sleep when they should and had probably noticed Saionji's lights still on at--what time was it? Jesus, it was 11:30 pm.

In any case, she wasn't up for being made to talk to anybody right now, especially not when she was this exhausted, so it was in the most dismissive tone she could muster that Saionji asked, "Who is it?"

"Um, it's me, Koizumi," called a voice that somehow was at once a little scratchy and very calming.

Saionji's entire face became a horridly unattractive salmon color almost instantly, and in her mind she told herself to kindly go fuck herself gently with a chainsaw. Why had that had to happen. She had pretty much just told Koizumi to go away, considering the tone of voice she had used. She really hadn't thought it would be Koizumi, who was usually fast asleep by now, being very responsible about her health and such. Saionji had quite expected either to hear a not-Koizumi offender mumble that it was okay and whatever trivial thing they needed could wait until tomorrow or for the person at the door to introduce themselves and promise they only needed a minute. But that didn't change that in this moment, right now, however accidentally Saionji had just implied the photographer should get lost.

After taking a few moments to steady the quake in her voice to a slight tremor, she called back, "The door's unlocked, come in."

The door unlocked after a second to reveal the Koizumi in question. Saionji forced herself not to stare as the red-haired girl shuffled into her room; instead of her usual saturated yellow undershirt and faded green dress with the small black waistbelt and white-and-pink-checkered necktie, Koizumi was wearing only the undershirt, which was just long enough (reaching midway down her hips) to qualify as a nightgown, and the necktie, not actually tied but hung around her neck. She also wasn't wearing her normal black tennis shoes, only the black knee-length socks she always wore under them. It was a strikingly cute look. And that was terrible.

"Hi, Hiyoko-chan!" Koizumi greeted her, and Saionji emitted a sound that was far more like a squeak than any sound she ever felt she was supposed to make. Yes, Koizumi called all her female classmates by their first names and -chan (as opposed to only calling boys by their family names), so there was nothing special about her doing it this time, or any time, but she still felt like melting.

Again, Saionji took a moment to control her voice. "Hi, Big Sis Koizumi!" she answered with a big smile. Nothing about the big smile or the animated voice she used was unusual; she always acted that way, even with people she didn't care for. It was cute, and cute was Saionji. "Great to see you!" she added, tilting her head and tossing her arms up in the air the way she liked to do to indicate she was excited about something. Usually candy. "What brings you here?"

Koizumi took an unextended invitation to sit on Saionji's bed, which irritated Saionji only briefly because it also caused the undershirt to slide up a little and exposed an inch or so more of Koizumi's legs than before. Saionji wondered to herself what sick god was laughing his ass off at her pain right now.

"Well, I wanted to check on you first of all..." Koizumi replied absently, placing an object in her hand that Saionji only now noticed on the bed. The object was a colored paper bag, the kind used for gifts and usually stuffed with tissue paper to hide the gift once it was inside. "And also give you a present."

At first Saionji thought she needed to conceal her excitement, lest she let Koizumi know she was disproportionately happy to be receiving a present from Koizumi in particular; but then she remembered, people _normally_ react well to being given presents, plus Saionji was the cute one anyways, so it made sense she would be extremely excited over this. "Oh, wow!" she cried, hopping from her chair and bouncing over to the bed. "Thank you so much, Big Sis Koizumi! I love presents!"

Koizumi giggled in response and handed Saionji the paper bag. "I hope it works well for you," she added.

Saionji accepted the bag with a short bow and then began to tear it to pieces. She hadn't lied when she said she loved presents; opening gifts was a blissful experience for her on par with eating candy and seeing Tsumiki fall and hurt herself. She made quick work of the tissue paper and reached into the bag to claim her prize.

It was bigger in her hand than she had expected from the size of the bag. It took up almost the entire space of the two-foot-cube bag, in fact. And it was very soft, scrunching in her hand as she took hold of it. She expended a slight labor removing it from the bag because it was so big that part of it got caught on the bottom where all the paper was glued together, but once it was all the way out she gaped at it for several seconds.

It was just this enormous cat plushie. All white, except for the little paw squishies and nose, which were pink, and the mouth and eyes, which were black. It was mostly head, paws, and torso with cartoonishly small legs. After admiring it thoroughly, Saionji hugged it tightly against her chest and made a prolonged, high-pitched "mmm!" sound like people do when something is unfathomably adorable.

"So you like it?" Koizumi laughed, kicking her legs back and forth.

"Oh, it's so precious!" Saionji agreed, running her hands along the thick, cotton fur of her new toy. "Thank you so so much Big Sis Koizumi, it's wonderful!"

"You can use it as a pillow if you want," Koizumi noted, standing and walking over to Saionji's writing desk.

Saionji immediately sought to try this out and dashed to her bed. She hopped on and snuggled up against her real pillows with the cat plushie at the top of the stack. "Oh, it feels awesome!" she reported, an enormous smile on her face. "It's like I could go to sleep right..."

She trailed off with a yawn, having forgotten how actually tired she was. She didn't want to fall asleep with Koizumi in the room, which besides being pretty rude would expose Koizumi to the fact that Saionji looked like a complete dork when she slept--she usually drooled, and she often brought her knees up to her chest like she was squatting for a military operation or something.

Saionji vaguely heard Koizumi say something after that, something that included "journal" and "today," but she was about half-asleep and didn't quite catch it. She forced herself to wake up a little and presumed that if it was important Koizumi would say it again.

She wasn't disappointed. "Hey, Hiyoko-chan, do you mind if I read your journal entry for today?" the photographer repeated.

One of the things Saionji recognized consciously in most of her waking moments was that it was almost never a good idea to let Koizumi read her journal. That thought rarely left her mind, even if she was doing something that had nothing at all to do with the journal or even with Koizumi--the knowledge still stuck with her, because she knew that if she _did_ let Koizumi read her journal, if Koizumi saw all the hopelessly romantic stuff written in there about her, it was probably all over. As long as she was conscious, there was a good chance Saionji was thinking about that, and this objective had been successful so far...

But in this moment, as she continued to snuggle with her new cat plushie, her eyes alternating between just barely open and closed entirely, Saionji was not quite conscious enough to remember that objective, and so instead of _not_ replying, "Mm-hmm," in a tired voice--she _did_ reply, "Mm-hmm," in a tired voice.

Saionji didn't even think about what was going to happen after that, but it makes sense that what happened was Koizumi picked up the journal and began to read what Saionji had written so far of today's entry. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Koizumi began to read it aloud:

"I had to deal with Tsumiki today, which was like eugh. I don't get why she thinks I would want to talk to her, but whatever! It was okay, because I felt better than usual for most of today. I think maybe it's because I actually got some sleep, thanks to Big Sis Koizumi staying out at the park with me until Night Time."

It was around that sentence that Saionji suddenly realized Koizumi was reading her journal and getting close to a particularly touchy couple of sentences concerning Koizumi herself, i.e. it was around that sentence that Saionji suddenly realized she was about to die.

"Wait, Big Sis Koizumi, don't--!" she cried, tumbling out of her bed and trying to maneuver around her kimono so she could stand again.

Koizumi appeared not to notice her and continued reading: "I love hanging out with Big Sis Koizumi, she's the best. ...It's a little hard to read here, you should probably work on your handwriting," she chastised.

Finally Saionji managed a standing position and pretty much leaped over to the writing desk. "Big Sis Koizumi I changed my mind that's my private personal business!" she declared, reaching up and forcefully closing the journal.

Koizumi stepped back a bit, looking somewhat confused and more than a little hurt, but she soon regained her composure. "Where's this coming from?" she queried, handing Saionji the book and folding her arms.

"It's just..." Saionji mumbled, fiddling with the top-right corner of the journal cover. "It's just private, that's all. I'm sorry..."

Koizumi breathed out a slow stream of air before shrugging her shoulders. "Well, that's ok," she decided. "Your personal thoughts are yours, after all. I think I probably should get to bed, though, it's way later than I usually stay up. Good night, Hiyoko-chan, and I'll see you tomorrow."

Saionji bit her lip, trying to think of something to say to ease the tension. She had, after all, just allowed Koizumi to see into her most secret thoughts and then all of a sudden forced her to stop without being able to tell her why. People didn't usually like that, and there was Koizumi gathering the remains of the colorful paper bag and moving to exit the cottage.

"Big Sis Koizumi, wait!" Saionji called after her helplessly, and Koizumi turned her head with a small, expectant smile.

Great, well, Saionji still didn't know what to say, and now she was making Koizumi just stand there while she opened and closed her mouth like an idiot. "I, um... I really like the present, so, uh, thank you!" she stammered lamely.

Koizumi smiled a little wider. "Of course, Hiyoko-chan, anything for you," she answered. Saionji stifled a whimper and shifted uncomfortably where she stood. "Good night then, Hiyoko-chan!"

"'Night," was all Saionji could get out in reply, and then Koizumi was gone.

Saionji sank into her chair with a long, drawn-out sigh that started out high-pitched and lowered as she fell, emulating the motion of her body.

This was it. This was Hell.

She glanced at her journal, still limp in her hand, then looked up at the door. She placed the journal on her writing desk and trudged (apparently, it was actually possible for people to trudge--Saionji had thought that was a made-up action that existed only in particularly flowery novel writing) to her bed. She collapsed on it and, after a few seconds, curled up to her cat plushie.

Maybe if she just slept, the thing that had just happened would stop having happened in the morning, and she wouldn't have to worry about whether or not Koizumi would still feel slighted or whether or not Koizumi had actually seen the romantic stuff and was just pretending not to have seen it. Even though she had been quite sleepy while writing that stuff, and it was possible that maybe, just maybe, it had been too difficult to read, she did have excellent handwriting.

Damn her excellent handwriting.


End file.
